Have nonprofits forgotten an important part of our mission?

Original Medium Post: https://justinpasquariello.medium.com/have-nonprofits-forgotten-an-important-part-of-our-mission-7dda2c6062e0

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How we can reclaim it, how others can help

They could have seen me as a broken alum of the foster care system. They could have seen me as a teenage boy without much to give. Instead, as featured last week, Kitty saw someone whose story could help people be great foster parents.

How can we all — particularly those of us in the nonprofit sector — also see the unique value all community members can bring to our shared work? How can we recognize the transformative role we can play in the lives of volunteers and donors — and recognize how transforming their lives also can advance our missions?[1]

This week, let’s explore these questions — and examine how to engage more volunteers and donors with accessible, meaningful opportunities to support our communities. This post will . . .

Focus on people who are less connected to opportunities to give or volunteer —

What are the barriers — and how do we address them?

The percentage of Americans volunteering and giving to nonprofits is declining. Is this partly because nonprofits haven’t been asking as broad a base of people to volunteer and give?[2]

As inequality has grown, wealth has become more concentrated — and it seems nonprofit fundraising effort has increasingly concentrated on those with greatest wealth (major gift fundraising).[3] An array of volunteer opportunities — including board service, service on fundraising committees, and some skilled advising — also are more accessible for those with greater wealth; perhaps this is part of why likelihood of volunteering increases as educational attainment increases.[4]

Nonprofits face a conundrum here. At East Boston Social Centers, for example, our big goals — ensuring staff earn the wages they deserve, significantly increasing joy in community, and helping all children enter Kindergarten ready to learn, joyful and thriving — require big fundraising. We are incredibly grateful to individuals and foundations who make major financial investments.

We have limited fundraising staffing and resources, and we try to maximize revenue per dollar invested in fundraising. We can do that with a focus on major gifts. We also want to provide meaningful volunteer opportunities — but know doing that well requires staff resources, and we don’t currently have the staff capacity to provide all the volunteer opportunities we’d like to provide.

Given these resource limitations, I am partly writing this to hold myself accountable to continue to ask how we can be inclusive in our fundraising and our volunteer engagement. I will continue to seek funds so we can invest in community fundraising and volunteer engagement as part of our joy strategy (you can support it here, or let me know if you’re interested in supporting it).

I am grateful to our staff and board for continuing to encourage us to be inclusive in our fundraising. I know several nonprofits that are leading here and am grateful for their example too. Nonprofit friends, let’s all continue to support each other on this journey.

Why we should engage everyone, and focus on those who have been less connected —

We need to engage all populations in fundraising and volunteering work — and need to focus on those who haven’t as often been invited to participate because:

1) Those who have been less connected might have some of the missing solutions to problems we seek to solve. As one example, foster children and foster care alumni are less likely to have the wealth or educational attainment of others, but when we are engaged in work that serves us, we bring unique expertise to improve and transform that work.[5]

2) As we show those who often have been left out, they do have power and can make a difference, they can build on that foundation to do even more good — for example, working to change policies and remove barriers to success. The nonprofit sector plays an important role in American civil society. When we help more people engage with the nonprofit sector, we increase their chance of voting and thereby strengthen our democracy too.[6]

3) Finally, the experience of giving and volunteering in and of itself is transformative. Helping more people volunteer, give and connect with purpose can increase individual joy and wellbeing; improve individual health; increase economic mobility; and strengthen communities.[7]

Now that we have discussed what nonprofits should do and why, our next post will examine how we can do it, how government and philanthropy can help, and what individuals can do too.

Until then, thank you again for helping me pursue my purpose, by reading this post. Hopefully, it helped you a little bit in your purpose too.

This is the 41st post about boosting joy the only way we can: in community. Please share, subscribe, and join our movement by emailing me or supporting East Boston Social Centers. Stay joyful, East Boston.

My family (and many others) at the finish line for Project Bread’s Walk for Hunger last year. This event does a engages a diverse group of people in volunteering and donating toward the shared purpose of ending hunger.

[1] It’s all back to that Social Centers motto: “when all give, all gain.”

[2] Read about declining volunteering here. In particular, we might not be asking Gen Z. You might be thinking “good — we shouldn’t ask those with few resources to give.” We never want to encourage people to donate more than they are able to comfortably give, but research suggests giving can be associated with increased economic mobility — and thus have positive economic impacts even for those with low incomes.

[3] This article confirmed a trend from membership giving to a focus on major gifts over time.

[4] See this report.

[5] Anthony Barrows is leading powerful work with those with lived experience to improve systems. The recent Treehouse Foundation Re-envisioning Foster Care in America conference, led by people with lived experience in child welfare, inspired to me to think more about how we can lead change.

[6] See, for example, this study.

[7] Volunteering supports mental health, happiness, physical health. Donating makes us happier and healthier. Those who are more generous have increased earnings. Increased engagement improves health at a community level and is associated with reduced crime.